Final thoughts on leaving...

Sunday afternoon we spent visiting Clarisse’s family, including her parents who moved back to Gamboula this January after retiring from the pastorate. In the evening the kids performed a concert for us with songs and bible verses they had each memorized. After the children’s concert we girls sang songs of parting and then headed outside for music and dancing with all the Nguebe teenagers. Half of Clarisse’s family, including her mom and dad and 4 siblings all live on the same concession. On any given day there are some 35 Nguebe’s in one place. We had a great time just laughing and egging each other on. We escorted Vicki back to the house for a good night’s sleep and I returned to Clarisse’s house to spend the night there. We stayed outside under a full moon until nearly 1:00am, dancing, listening to music and ended with a time of prayer with some of the older kids, Eloi and Clarisse. We piled into her bed and then sat up talking for another long while with Nadege before finally falling asleep. We were up at 4:30 Monday morning in order to get the last minute things packed and to be ready for the truck that was leaving at 6:00am sharp. Our parting was filled with sobbing, clinging to one another until the last minute. It was a parting of sweet sorrow as leaving Clarisse meant coming back to Darren.
I have said it before and I think it is worth repeating. Living and working in the CAR is no great physical sacrifice for Darren or I. On the contrary, we love living and working in the CAR. Despite the daily irritations, the constant threat of bandits, and the relative financial insecurity that comes with living in Central Africa, we love it. I love the people, I love travelling around visiting new people, picking up new languages, constantly being challenged. Where the real sacrifice comes in are the wounds to the heart. Even when you think the wounds have healed, the scars remain and scars remain tender for a long time. It’s not just the wounds from being disappointed by people and the church, nor from the pain and sorrow that are in your face every day (like 1 year old twins that weigh 3 kg each), but even more so for me right now are the wounds from having to say good-bye. Leaving one family behind for another. I don’ think it ever gets easy, and if it ever did I think it would be a bad thing. This is the sacrifice we make, this is taking up our cross and following Him, this is allowing ourselves to love and be loved—it involves risking being wounded, knowing that the scars will always remain tender.
The struggle is learning to be content in all things, (read: in all the places that we work and live), yet living with the longing to be near those that we love. Don’t mistake me by thinking it is only Clarisse that I feel torn leaving, as there are others who I love dearly and enjoy my time and conversations with. She is, however, my sister and friend.
Okay, more thoughts to come later.

Clarisse and I-Yaya and Gambe

Dr. WANE Emmanuel and his new computer.

Mr. Bangui! Calvin, our student in Bangui who is finishing grade 11 this year with hopes of graduating high school next year. Thanks to help from our donors, Calvin is able to attend private school this year while public school students are locked out of their schoola because their teachers haven't been paid in months. It is a tragedy.

Martino. That is his name and he is the baby I had the privilege of witnessing enter the world.

Trip Summary-Part Two

Baby Angela. This is Medard and Julienne's one year old who was born just weeks after we left in December 2006. What a cutie!

Chrysler and I giving advice to one of the cooperative members. I am sure he is telling him to clear around his trees and put mulch around them. We must have said the same thing to at least 20 villages in the course of all our travels.

Nadege and I (or is that a white Central African?) teaching a group of women about tree planting. Nadege is an excellent teacher and with a bit more practice will be on her way to teaching women all over the South West.

Vicki and I encouraging a women's group to keep up their hard work.

CAR Trip Summary-Part One

FYI: I am safely back in Victoria, setting up home for what will be an interesting and hopefully fulfilling 2+ years in the great white North. I apologize for neglecting my blog while we have been gone but we had difficulty accessing the internet so here is my feeble attempt at catching up. I think the next series of posts will be random stories and attempts at describing the last 7 weeks.
Overall, our time in CAR was excellent. Despite the chaos around us, a coup attempt in Chad, violence in Kenya and now unrest in Cameroon, CAR is still behind but I see reason for hope. Maybe not on the country level, but at least on the local level, change is slowly taking place and it is encouraging. The nutrition garden is doing better than I expected and looks better than I had hoped. There is a lot of hard work going on and Nadege is giving good leadership in the garden. She has kept records for the past year of what food goes to the nutrition centre daily as well as keeping daily work records. I have a hard time doing that. The nursery looks good despite a severe dry season and a nursery manager who is very new to the job. The new ‘Chef de Centre’, Benoit, is a very upright man who is giving good leadership to the project and his staff. Despite the usual complaints about the head of the project, the guys are very thankful for the spiritual direction that Benoit gives them. Each morning starts with prayer and devotions, led by Benoit and there are obvious signs of the impact in their lives. This was especially evident in the lives of Chrysler and Eloi, our travelling partners.

My travellingpartner, Miss Vicki

Most of our time was spent travelling around the South-West of CAR visiting cooperatives that were formed during our time in CAR. I had been to visit most of the gardens and cooperatives in 2006 so this was a good follow-up to compare how things were going. While many gardens were disappointing in their upkeep there were a few outstanding gardens and despite the harsh dry season, fruit was being harvested. Bayanga was most impressive and we definitely saw the fruit of our labour as well as that of the other missionaries that had spread fruit trees around the pygmy villages. Not only did we see trees fruiting, we saw people walking down the road carrying large jackfruits, peels on the side of the road and fruits for sale. What a joy!

Passionfruit from a coop member in Boukere--delicious!

When we weren’t travelling Vicki spent time working in the nutrition garden or with Ann in the medical depot. I spent many hours meeting with the project staff, helping plan work for 2008, dealing with worker issues and encouraging the Chef to keep up the good work. In the afternoons we visited gardens and fish ponds and even spent one afternoon in a fish pond, pulling out lily pad plants that choke out fish in the pond. We must have spent near 3 hours in the water without a thought for what else might be in there with us. It wasn’t until I got home and told Darren what we did that he asked how many leeches attacked us. LEECHES! Good thing I didn’t think of leeches or I may never have gone in the water in the first place. Yikes! Vicki goes to bed quite early so I spent many evenings with Clarisse, and we even had a couple of sleep over’s. We had a good time catching up, sharing times of laughter, crying and prayer.

Me and Anna, a year older, but still tiny as ever and still my baby!

Leaving was very hard, made even more difficult by the fact that I did not get as much quality time with Clarisse as I had hoped given the amount of travelling we chose to do. The weekend before we left I did all my packing and had all the project staff over for lunch. We had a great time eating, laughing, and trying not to cry as we said our farewell formalities. We ended our time with a slide show on my laptop of photos from ECHO and family Christmas photos. It was a special time for all of us.

Farewell lunch with the project staff.

Giving Birth

The whole idea of giving birth has always been both miraculous and frightening to me. How a child is conceived, develops and then is forced out into the world is so amazing that while I have never really wanted to do it myself, I have wanted to watch the birth of a baby. Not just any baby though. It seemed much too impersonal to wander into the Gamboula Hospital to watch just any woman give birth and then to walk out like it was just another day. I have wanted to watch one of my sisters give birth. I have six of them here, plus 6 in-laws, but every time they have gone into labour, either I haven't been here or it has been the middle of the night and despite my pleas for them to wake me, they haven't.

At the last minute on Saturday night I decided against spending 5 days in Cameroon, given that our time here was drawing short and I haven't had much time with Clarisse at all. You don't want to make your Yaya mad at you, that is for sure. So we didn't go to Cameroon which turned out to be great since on Monday night, Blandine, my sister in-law and mother to Anna ad the twins, went into labour. One of Clarisse's kids came up to tell me that she was in the hospital, so I rushed down only to sit and wait 2 hours for the event to happen.

It was pretty incredible. I am not sure that Canadian mothers-to-be would have liked the set up so much as everyone gives birth in the same room and no men allowed. There is one mid-wife and however many naked women on tables as are in labour at the time. Blandine went in first and while she was having contractions a second lady came in and was out in 20 minutes leaving Blandine to wonder when it was her turn. Once Blandine started pushing a second lady came in; then it was a bit of a race. I was called into the room once they saw the head. I would describe it all for you but I am sure no one really wants to read what it looks like. The cord was wrapped around the head and the baby wasn't in a good position but you can't exactly send it back in to try again, so they pulled it on out. Poor Blandine didn't at all look relieved to have delivered. She was too nervous waiting to see if a second one was coming. Once she realized there was only one she was much relieved.

Clarisse was the one to take the baby and wipe him down, weigh him, measure him and swaddle him up. At this point HE was handed over to me while Blandine got washed up and helped to her room. I have never held a 5 minute old baby and while he wasn't exactly cute, he was pretty miraculous looking and I guarantee I will never forget that little guy as long as I live. I am not sure how to thank Blandine for allowing me to see her in her God-given glory but maybe the smile on my face was enough.

Vicki and I are otherwise fine, in good health and we are very busy. I think if I knew that Darren was on his way here in the next month or so I would be perfectly happy just carrying on. However, I know I have to leave again, and it pains me. I thought it would be easier to leave this time around, but I don't think it will be. I think it will be the same, awful tearing that it was when we left a year ago. I guess some things never get any easier.